ERUPTION OF MOUNT GALUNGGONG. 75 



immense quantity of scoriae and ashes, tliat Dr. 

 JungLuhn thinks a layer nearly fifty feet thick was 

 spread over an area within a radius of seven miles ; 

 and yet all this was thrown out during a single 

 night. Forty native villages were buried beneath it, 

 and about three thousand souls are supposed to have 

 perished between this single setting and rising of the 

 sun. Dr. Horsfield, who drew up an account of this 

 temble phenomenon from the stories of the natives, 

 wrongly supposed that " an extent of ground, of the 

 mountain and its environs, fifteen miles long, and 

 fall six broad, was by this commotion swallowed up 

 within the bowels of the earth." 



On the 8th of July, 1822, Mount Galunggong, an 

 old volcano, but a few miles northeast of Papanda- 

 yang, suffered a far more terrible and destructive 

 eruption. At noon on that day not a cloud could be 

 seen in the sky. The wild beasts gladly sought 

 the friendly shades of the dense forest ; the himi of 

 myriads of insects was hushed, and not a sound was 

 to be heard over the highly-cultivated declivities of 

 tliis mountain, or over the rich adjoining plain, but 

 the dull creaking of some native cart drawn by the 

 sluggish buffalo. The natives, under shelter of their 

 rude liuts, were giving themselves up to indolent 

 repose, when suddenly a frightful thundering was 

 lieard in the earth ; and from the top of this old vol- 

 cano a dark, dense mass was seen rising higher and 

 higher into the air, and sj^reading itself out over the 

 clear sky with such an appalling rapidity that in a 

 few moments the whole landscape was shrouded in 

 t he darkness of night. 



